Mobile phone bills are a thorn in many family's sides. Smartphones and tablets continue to become more of a necessity than a commodity and families are buying these items for kids at increasingly younger ages. An increase in devices means an increase in the mobile bill. No matter how much money you make, your mobile bill is a noticeable part of your budget. If you are looking to cut your bill down, consider these options.

Raid Your Bill

Have you ever actually looked at your bill? I mean really looked at it. Most of us find the subtotal and write the check every month without even bothering to look at what we are paying for. Sometimes, unbeknownst to the consumer, companies like to slip in extra products and services that customers don't know about and never use like road side assistance or even a third party charge that happened to snake its way onto you account. Make sure that you are not paying for services you aren't using and put a block on your account that stops third party vendors from charging you. Even if it only saves you $3 per bill that is still a gallon of gas saved per year on services you won't miss.

Get Your Discount

Many companies work with mobile providers in order to offer an employee discount. It is not just the corporate world either, public sector jobs, and even schools are in on the action. Depending on the agreement you could see a bill reduction of 25% or more and that is not chump change. Simply go into a carrier store and ask if your company offers a discount or search for your providers discount page and enter your employer's email address to see if a discount available.

Use Free Communication Apps

The greatest thing about smartphones is the opportunities they provide. I cannot begin to tell you how much money I have made and how much I have saved using apps on my phone. If it wasn't for my smartphone there would be no Dollar Dad. One great way to save money on your phone bill by using your phone is to use free communication apps like Skype or WhatsApp to do all of your daily communications. These apps allow you to go around your minutes and texts and prevent overage charges. One thing to not is that they will use data if you do not have a WiFi connection.

Go Prepaid

If you can't trust yourself or the other people on your plan you can save money by choosing a prepaid phone. The benefit to this is that you know exactly how much you are going to be spending every month and you can budget accordingly. The bad part is that if you run out of minutes/data you have to pay more or go without until the next month.

Shop Around

This is true of almost any bill you have. You should always be looking for whoever is going to give you the best deal. With all of the rules and regulations that have been slapped on service providers, switching between companies is not as much as a headache as it used to be. The biggest services providers are constantly offering up sweetheart deals to steal you away from their competitors. You may not even need to switch companies, if you threaten to leave your current provider may cut you a deal.

Stay Connected to WiFi Everywhere

It's 2017 and more places than ever offer up free WiFi for their customers. Always be sure to take advantage of this by being on WiFi as often as possible and setting your phone to automatically connect to places that you frequent. This will save you from spending money on expensive data overages.

How do you save money on your smartphone bill? Let me know in the comments!